Thursday, October 2, 2014

An international team of researchers led by professor Roberto Morandotti of INRS-EMT in Canada announced a new method to achieve a different type of photon pair source that fits into a computer chip. To generate the cross-polarized photons, Caspani and colleagues used two different laser beams at different wavelengths —one vertically polarized and another horizontally polarized.

The researchers said their innovation could form the core of the next-generation of quantum optical communication and computing technology.

The research will be presented at The Optical Society's (OSA) 98th Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics, being held Oct. 19-23 in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

“While several efforts have been devoted to develop on-chip sources of polarization-entangled photons, the process typically used to generate these photons only allows the generation of photons with the same polarization as the laser beam used to pump the device — either both horizontal or vertical — after which entanglement can be achieved by accurately mixing these states. Now, we have found a way to directly generate cross-polarized photon pairs,” says Lucia Caspani, a postdoctoral fellow at INRS-EMT and co-author of the Frontiers in Optics paper.